


Don't Get Too Close (You Might Get Burned)

by glackedandmullered



Category: Rooster Teeth/Achievement Hunter RPF
Genre: Trans Character, injuries
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-21
Updated: 2015-08-21
Packaged: 2018-04-16 11:53:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,038
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4624371
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/glackedandmullered/pseuds/glackedandmullered
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The heist goes off without a hitch as far as Geoff is concerned, until the radio tells them otherwise.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Don't Get Too Close (You Might Get Burned)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [tenlittlecock_bites](https://archiveofourown.org/users/tenlittlecock_bites/gifts).



> Happy Birthday Zane!

Protect the boys. Protect  _his_ boys; it’s the only thing more important than the take and he couldn’t even do that right.

As flames lick the sky--a result of one of Michael’s infamous blasts, and the sound of screaming leads Geoff’s way down the side street that leads to the arranged meeting point, he wonders where the jubilant cries from the pair were. His body hums with energy, adrenaline like a mother fucker thrumming through his veins.

The last thing to come through the comms had been a yell.

* * *

 

“Geoff!” Jack greets, grinning wide. His face is smudged with blood but it clearly isn’t his own, “You got the money?” he asks while hustling his boss through the fire door that Ray had disabled the day before.

“No, left it at the store,” Geoff replies, staring Jack down with an incredulous expression. “Of course I’ve got it, biggest take yet!”

The door clicks shut behind him, dropping the light to an artificial grunge. It’s a small unit, a recommendation of Jack’s before the planning began; in one of the more affluent areas of Los Santos. There were four cops living in the immediate area, too far up their own asses to think anyone would dare try and sneak by them; they were so confident in their own ability they never even thought to check. Everyone had protested before the accuracy of the statement hit them; thank fuck for the LSPD being built up of fucking morons.

He hears Gavin before he sees him. The loud squawk that works as well as any foghorn; he leaps out from behind the wall with a cheer, wrapping long arms all the way around Geoff.

“We’re set now, right Geoff? We can kick back!”

“Still gotta split it six ways, Gav,” Geoff reminds him--Gavin groans, spinning on his heel with a flair of dramatics.

“I miss when there were only three of us,” he huffs.

“Course you do,” Jack says, “because we could have pulled  _this_ off without explosives, sniping, and Sir kills-a-lot.”

Ryan smiles smugly at the nickname, “And without the wonder twins, Geoff would have had to keep fucking  _you_  and I know that’s not exactly a memorable experience.”

Gavin makes a sound akin to that of a wounded bird, “Oi! You and I was  _one_  time, Rye, and I seem to remember you were pretty fucking pleased after it.”

“Was I?” Ryan gasped dramatically, “I can barely remember!”

“I hate you,” Gavin grumbles, tugging the comms link out of his ear as he drops to a crouch and settles there.

“Love you too, Gavvy,” Ryan grins mockingly before his attention is drawn away.

He takes the money bag from Geoff’s hand--it’s heavy, the straps straining against the weight and he yanks the top open, sifting through the wrapped bundles immediately.

“I checked the stacks, Rye,” Geoff says, “I’m not an amateur, there’s no dye packs or anything in there.”

“You can never be too careful,” Ryan notes but hands the bag back, satisfied. “They knew we were coming.”

“Oh yeah?” Geoff smirks, “Then how did we made off with three mill?”

Jack’s eyebrows jump to his hairline as Gavin cheers again, jumping up from his crouch with buoyant energy, up and down like a child on Christmas day and Ryan frowns.

“Three mill? This isn’t three mill,” he says, kicking the duffle bag.

Geoff rolls his eyes and says, “Michael has the rest of course,”

“ _Of course_ ,” Gavin repeats, “Give the money to the guy with the  _explosives_.”

“It’s Michael, he won’t let anything happen to it,” Jack reasons.

Geoff finds himself pausing in the middle of celebration, “Isn’t he here?” he asks with a touch of nerves. Michael should have left before him, set the explosives and go that was how he worked. He should have been back with the money a while before Geoff, who had the cops to evade.

Gavin shakes his head, leans against the back wall and shrugs, “He’s probably off adrenaline boning Ray,” he says lightly; but the joke doesn’t land with Geoff, there’s a wall blocking its descent, a wall of fear.

“Ray isn’t here either?”

They both had plenty of time, Geoff feels the air chill.

“Did either of them check in?” he asks Ryan, heart beating in an unsteady rhythm against his ribcage.

Ryan picks up on his distress easily, smoothly replying, “I haven’t heard anything since the cops showed up,” before Geoff can descend into panic, he adds, “Ray doesn’t talk when he’s sniping, and Michael…”

“Michael shouts curses like a motherfucker from the get go,” Geoff finishes for him as he trails off. “You know he should have checked in.”

Ryan passes him the comms radio without a word.

With an embarrassing tremor shuddering through his hands Geoff holds down the button, keeping his voice as steady as he can. If the communication has been compromised he can’t let the enemy know he’s scared.

“Mogar, Brown? Come in?”

Silence.

Static.

“Mogar, Brown, respond,” he speaks a little louder.

Static.

Silence.

“Goddamnit Michael, Ray, where are you?!”

Ryan snatches the radio back, “You’re worried, I get it,” he says coolly, “but you know we don’t break codenames.”

Geoff punches the wall. It’s solid and unforgiving under his fist, cracking his knuckles before it cracks the brick; his fist doesn’t even leave a dent, but blood smears. Gavin slides out of the door to check the street, Jack calls him back halfheartedly but doesn’t follow.

The static is taunting.

\---

The radio stays silent for a painful length of time. Geoff lifts it, checks it, turns it off and back on; he’s into his forty third minute of cycling through the motions when Ryan snatches it off him and stands it on a chunk of brick wall, half demolished in the corner.

He’s pacing frantically, Ryan and Gavin both actually. Geoff understands the anxiety--right now they’re sitting ducks, miles from the Heist location but still well within the PD’s grasp. This would end, if they were lucky, with a hail of gunfire; and they were never lucky.

They had to get moving, sometime soon they would have to leave the meet point; they all know they should have already left.

“Geoff?” The voice that crackles through the radio well over an hour after the heist is weak and tired, tight with something--pain, fear? both?

Geoff scrambles for it, holding down the button, stumbling over his words as he gasps out Ray’s name.

“Where are you? Why the fuck didn’t you check in?” He doesn’t care that he sounds pathetic, that he sounds like he’s about to break down--hell they can probably hear his heart beating in the next city over.

“I’m sorry I-” his heavy breathing fills the room with a thick tension that Geoff finds it hard to breathe around himself.

“Michael’s hurt,” The words rocket Geoff’s heart into his throat, beating hard against his adams apple, choking him.

“Hurt? How hurt? What happened?” He asks, trying his hardest not to sound too panicked; it fails, he sounds terrified.

“Cops held him up,” Ray pants, “got caught up in the blast.”

There’s a thump, a crackled thud like his end of the comms has hit the ground and his voice is far away as it says, “No, no hey it’s okay, calm down,” followed by a high pitched whine that Geoff recognises immediately. He’s heard it before, but never laced with such an injection of pain.

Ryan is leaning over Geoff’s shoulder now, hinting at the eldest to hand over the radio.

“Ray it’s Ryan, tell me what’s happening, where’s Michael hurt?” He shouts loud enough for Ray to scramble back to the mic--the sound of his sneakers shuffling through dirt is crisp and clear.

Geoff blesses the heavens for sending him someone as calm and level headed as Ryan to be his common sense as the helplessness seeps in. Michael cries out again. Geoff’s heart clenches.

“He- I don’t know, his sides all burned up, there’s blood, lots of blood Ryan I don’t know how to help him,” Ray stumbles pitifully over his words, a level of fear in his voice that no one has  _ever_  heard before and his last words fall out through a sob.

Ryan shushes him easily, his voice level and controlled, “Slow down and tell us where you are,” he says softly but firm enough that even Geoff finds his heartbeat levelling.

The radio crackles, breaks up a few times but the location eventually comes out. It’s close, not to where the crew are now but close to the bank, close to the heist. Geoff slips a handgun into his belt as he struggles to his feet, fists clenched with enough force to etch crescent shapes into his palms.

“We’re coming Ray,” he promises, “hang tight, we’ll be there soon.”

As they rush to get outside they all realise with a jolt that Gavin has already destroyed the getaway car. Not that any of them would want to use it so soon after the heist but it would be better than nothing which is what they have now.

Geoff runs his hands over his head gripping tufts of hair tightly, trying to kickstart his breathing again. His boys are out there alone, hurt, and at the mercy of the cops who were no doubt scouring the entirety of Los Santos searching for the perpetrators of one of the biggest heists in LS history. He’s in control, always in control, but right now he has nothing. Part of him tries to muster up a plan, the other needs to crumple.

Before he can spiral any deeper the sound of squealing tires fills the alleyway and everyone has their guns up in the air.

“Get in, shitheads,” Lindsay,  _thank god_ for Lindsay.

As Geoff’s hand closes around the door handle another hand cover it, large and warm and he feels Jack’s breath on his neck.

“Keep your cool, boss,” the man says firmly, quietly; like he can see Geoff about to break down and knows the future will be a lot better if Geoff doesn’t lose it in front of everyone. His oldest friend knows him too well.

Geoff nods and throws himself into the backseat; Ryan is up front with Lindsay, Jack shoves Gavin in beside him and his bony elbow presses into Geoff’s ribs. They settle on the edges of their seats and Lindsay peels out of the alley with a roar of the engine.

“What the fuck were you thinking?” she asks as they speed down the highway; her red hair alights in the sun, whipping across her face with the cold wind blasting through the open window.

“How did you even know? Geoff shoots back in lieu of an answer, his voice cracks but remains as steady as he can manage. “You stalking us?”

She’s wearing her signature aviators and  _still_ manages to cut Geoff a look through the rear-view mirror.

“Just because you fired me doesn’t mean I cut the feed to your radios,” she answers coolly, “And don’t dodge the question!”

Geoff practically growls, “We were thinking about a three mill take, what the fuck did you think we were thinking about?”

“You must have known!” she spits back just as viciously. “The whole LSPD and  _more_ have been sitting on that bank for  _weeks_  waiting for you to make a move.”

The car goes silent.

“How do you even  _miss_  that?” she asks, angry but genuinely surprised.

Geoff whips around in his seat and stares at Gavin, “Gav, you said Dan-”

“He said n-nothing was happening!” the Brit assures, backing as far away from Geoff as physically possible which ended with him practically curled up in Jack’s lap.

Instead of his fists into Gavin’s face Geoff slams his hands onto the headrest of the seat in front, cursing, “Great, Gruchy’s compromised! fucking  _great_ , can this day get any fucking worse?”

“Don’t test fate,” Lindsay growls.

She’s driving smoothly down the highway, not over the limit like she wants to. The last thing anyone needs right now is to be pulled over; so she’ll keep her foot from flooring the gas even if every fibre of her being is itching to. Similarly, Geoff holds back the words in his throat that want to tell her to get there faster.

“Hold on, boys.”

\---

Ray and Michael are exactly where Geoff thought they would be. Out of sight of the searching helicopters, away from prying eyes; there’s an abandoned shelter down a dirt track, it used to hold horses for the farm a mile through the hills but they’d closed it off a year ago. Now it was a classic crack den, filthy and dark but concealed.

Ray calls them over without leaving Michael’s side. He's a mess too, red rimmed eyes and pale skin beneath the dirt and grime of the heist; but he looks physically unharmed, save for a dusting of soot around his nose and raw blisters streaking the skin around his wrists and hands. It isn’t enough to spark immediate concern when everyone can see the man at Ray’s knees.

There's blood on Michael’s face, locks of hair matted and smeared with the stuff but the angle at which he's lying hides the worst of his injuries. His eyes are closed, chapped lips open just a little, his skin sickeningly tinged grey; dirt gathers in the creases he makes as he frowns, pained even in unconsciousness.

"How long has he been out?” Ryan asks immediately, leaping into the role of medic that he never signed up for, but comes easily to him by now.

Ray shakes his head frantically, “I don't know h-he was- he stopped talking-  _Ryan-”_

The youngest is shaking, swaying, and too far out of his comfort zone; he’s clearly in shock and struggling, and Ryan sees that. He lifts Ray by the shoulders and pulls him away, trusting the others to take care of him.

“It’s okay, we’ve got him,” Jack says to the lad, easily nudging him towards his boyfriend who reaches out with grabbing hands, shaking fingers that itch to curl into roughed up fabric just to get the boy closer.

“Come here,” Geoff says, relief evident in the shadow of his voice as his hands touch Ray and he has solid evidence that he’s there, and alive, and talking.  

He immediately draws Ray close, kisses his thick hair that smells like rotten smoke--kisses his forehead, his cheek, lips, everywhere he can. He wishes he could do the same with Michael.

“You’re okay?” Geoff questions anxiously, his hands cupping Ray’s cheeks, sweeping away tears with a swift swipe of his thumbs.

“Yeah, yeah I’m-” he coughs, “I’m fine.”

The cough is unnerving but the only blood on his body is Michael’s so Geoff’s satisfied that only one of his boys is in any immediate danger.

He holds Ray as tightly as he can as he watches Ryan roll Michael onto his back and starts his initial examination. The man's signature leather jacket is missing, his black t-shirt is in tatters, easily pulled away and it falls apart to ribbons in Ryan's hand. The dark material makes the wound underneath barely visible, but against bare skin they all feel like vomiting.

His binder is ashy with chalky soot, burned over the left side of Michael’s ribcage, charred black and crispy. It’s sticking to the mess of blood and blackened skin, almost melted into the massive wound, and as much as Michael will hate it, it has to go.

Even unconscious, Michael squirms and whines as Ryan works at peeling the taut fabric out of the burn. The skin melts like goo off his side, there's a flash of stringy muscle in the very centre and Gavin turns away, gagging.

Ray whimpers along with him and presses his face against Geoff’s chest.

“It’s my fault,” he says, muffled against his boyfriends shirt, “he got hurt because of me.”

Geoff pulls him away, fixing Ray in place with a look that screamed  _explain._

“I missed the two guys at the door,” Ray sniffs, “they cornered him, I-I tried to get them but they kept moving--he took them down but then the explosives went off and-” he cuts himself off with a sob. Geoff feels a surge of pride knowing Michael had taken out two armed guards with little more than his fists since he didn’t like to take both explosives  _and_  firearms on jobs, but he could feel every gasp of pain from the ground like he was physically going through it himself and his expression turned sour.  

Lindsay nipps around behind them, falling to her knees beside Ryan with water and gauze, a weak attempt at field first aid but yet again it was the best they could do. Geoff tries not to gag at the flood of watery blood that waterfalls onto the ground.

With a choked gasp Ray continues, “I ran in after him but there was smoke everywhere I couldn’t see but he was there,” the gasping, hacking cough he suffers through tells them all he didn’t get off scot free from the smoke. “He woke up long enough for me to get him to the bike and drive him here but he was- he was in  _so much pain_.”

He dissolves into hysterics that border on hyperventilation, letting Geoff ease him to the floor before his legs can give way.

“Shh shh, it wasn’t your fault,” Geoff says, rocking him, pressing kisses into his hair. “They knew we were coming, we couldn’t have prepared.”

“T-they knew?” Ray parrots in a small voice, “b-but Dan said-”

Geoff’s eyes darken, “Dan’s done.”

“Geoff!” Gavin cuts in, “Dan didn’t-”

A glare shuts him up instantly, “Dan is  _done_.” Geoff repeats, anger boiling under his skin as he turns his attention back to Ryan. “How bad is he?”

Ryan sighs and runs a hand through his hair, streaking the blond with sticky red.

“If I thought we could swing it I’d say he needs a hospital,” Ryan says. He’s draped a jacket of Lindsay’s over Michael’s chest to spare him a little dignity but the wound is still violently visible, black charred and filthy, “The burn looks third degree and I’d say he’s got a hefty concussion on top of the smoke inhalation.”

The end of his thought hangs tensely in silence.

“We can’t risk the hospital,” Jack reminds everyone darkly before Geoff can make any rash decisions. “The whole city is on our asses right now, waltzing into an ER now would be handing ourselves over.”

Geoff nods under the scrutiny of Jack’s words, happy for once that someone else is taking the reins. As a boss he knows it’s true, as a leader of a notorious crime ring he knows; but as a boyfriend, as a lover, he can’t bring himself to take the decision on his own. He wants to say fuck the consequences and do whatever he can to get Michael treated by real medics, but what good would saving his life do if he ends up spending his healing time in handcuffs and alone.

“Can you treat him?” he whispers finally, clutching Ray to him like a broken toy.

Ryan looks down, back up, to Lindsay and back before replying, “I can try.”

“Then we try,” Geoff says, numb as he staggers to his feet with Ray.

The youngest allows himself to be passed off to Gavin, his arm sliding over the man’s shoulder as Geoff moves to Michael for the first time. He kneels, brushes dampened curls off the man’s forehead and kisses blood streaked skin; the rusty taste hits his tongue like a bullet but he doesn’t recoil, only moves back when Jack encourages him to.

“I’m not treating him here,” Ryan says, preparing to lift Michael. He hesitates, “This might wake him.”

Geoff understands the implication and lays a hand across his boyfriend's mouth. Proved right, Michael’s eyes shoot open the second Ryan moves him from the ground, the wound tearing open, tugging at the deadened nerves beneath the skin. His sudden screaming is muffled by the rough hand, his eyes rolling in their sockets before landing on Geoff.

He almost seems calmed, before the pain hits again and they load him into the car so Geoff can let go. Surprisingly, Michael replaces Geoff’s hand with his own, biting into his fist instead of letting his screams ring aloud.

Gavin barely manages to scramble into the side door before Lindsay takes off down the dirt track. Necks craning, they keep worried eyes on the man laid out flat in the back of the car. Luckily, Lindsay’s vehicle is a monster, seven seater with enough room in the back to lay Michael out completely and have Geoff sitting with his back to the side window. His legs are outstretched for Michael to rest his head, his hand clutching Michael’s free one tight enough to feel a loss of sensation; he winces as blood dribbles down Michael’s fist from holding in the pain but hey, whatever works.

He pukes twice on the way back and the vomit is red stained and black spotted--no sarcastic comments from Lindsay about the upholstery can be heard.

Jack feeds Ray sips of water in the back seat, taking care of him so Geoff can focus; his throat is blackened with soot and raw from choking on the smoke in his lungs, and as soon as they can he’ll get an oxygen mask and a lot of warm blankets.

\---

Neither Geoff nor Ray get a wink of sleep that night. Gavin shamefully nods off on Ryan’s couch, mumbling his guilt when his phone wakes him and he sees the others huddled in sleepless worry. It’s Dan and Geoff puts a bullet through the handset before he can even consider whether or not to answer it.

His retort dies in his throat at the look on Geoff’s face.

Ray cuddles up to Geoff’s side, picking at the strips of gauze taped carefully around his palms that spiral up to his wrists. The damage to his own hands had been nothing more than flash burns really, from getting too close to scalding metal when he moved in to get Michael out. It was more like a sting than actual pain, especially with the numbing cream Jack had smeared there.

Ryan isn’t in the bedroom too long patching Michael up, it’s made worse by the fact that the best he can scrounge up is a local anaesthetic that does very little to quell Michael’s pain while the wound is cleaned and dressed. Throughout the process Michael babbles uselessly, dizzily asking questions that he should know the answer to; Ryan blames the concussion and fights the temptation to strap him down to the bed so he can stop fucking moving.

As soon as the gauze is in place, taped down and secure, Michael bolts upright, yelling Ray’s name at the top of his lungs. He thrashes against the pain, against the hands that hold him as Ryan and Lindsay try in vain to keep their hard work intact. He shakes with jerky movements, whimpering Ray’s name until the younger man bursts through the door with Geoff in tow and bundles his boyfriend up in his arms despite the whimper of pain. Michael sighs, his breath hitching and his hand finds Geoff’s around Ray’s back, squeezing once before he collapses forwards, dead to the world--bar laboured breathing that stutters through pale, cracked lips.

Ray immediately panics, lowering his unconscious boyfriend back onto the pillows. He coughs, chokes a little and Geoff presses the oxygen mask from earlier back to his boyfriends face, fingers dancing up and down Ray’s spine in comfort.

Ray draws in a long, cool breath, eyelids fluttering as the sweet oxygen fills his lungs and his next inhale comes easier.

Geoff breaks away from Ray just long enough to crack a good sized dent in the drywall with his fist.

It had been a good take, a  _great_ take, the  _best._ Like clockwork they had broken in, the sounds of patrons screaming like music to his ears as Geoff strolled through the bank with practised grace--nothing should have gone wrong. Now their inside man was a traitor, over a third of their take was gone, and fuck only knows what evidence they’ve left behind in the form of blood and fabric littered with DNA.

Not to mention one boyfriend is coughing up black stained goo and the other had more morphine in his veins than actual blood to counter the savage pain of burning at his own hands.

Ray staggers up behind him, wrapping his arms around Geoff’s middle, pressing his face into his boyfriend’s back. His breath on Geoff’s spine is calming, reassuring, grounding at the least.

Geoff’s hands hold Ray’s to his stomach, a bruise forming between his knuckles, smatters of blood over broken skin and he sighs, exhausted. He wouldn’t be so tired, he thinks, if he’d rested off the post heist adrenaline with whiskey and not crippling anxiety.

“I’ll leave you guys alone,” Ryan says after an awkward silence, plucking at his stained shirt, “I gotta clean up.”

Leaving without a word from the understandably silent men, Ryan shuts the door for their privacy and knows he’ll be going shirtless to get cleaned up since all of his shirts are back in the bedroom.

They sit then, Ray and Geoff, beside the bed. Geoff leans forward, not even noticing Ray sitting back on his heels, chewing his lip, thinking.

They’ll hold it together as long as they can for Michael’s healing but in the end-

After a few moments in silence, Ray shifts to his feet.

“Where are you going?” Geoff wonders, only turning his head enough to see Ray in his peripherals.

Swallowing against the roughness in his throat Ray replies, “I-I gotta get my stuff from the apartment.”

Geoff doesn’t ask, he lets his face convey it; the scrunched up skin over his nose forcing his eyebrows down.

“I’ve gotta get out,” Ray says with a shrug, not looking Geoff in the eye.

Geoff blinks in confusion, “Get out?”

Ray begins to pace towards the end of the bed, the conflict of cogs working inside his head showing plain on the mix of emotions on his face, “Yeah, I’ve got what a day? Half a day? Before the hounds come after me.”

“Who’s sending hounds?” Geoff is standing now too, approaching the smaller man with a caution saved only for wounded animals and scared prey.

“Geoff,” Ray bites, pleading.

“Ray?”

Ray sighs exaggeratedly, “If it had been  _anyone else_  what would you be doing right now?”

“What?” Geoff’s eyes darken as it begins to settle in what’s going through Ray’s head.

“I would have been banished,” Ray answers where Geoff refuses to, “I wouldn’t have been able to set foot in Los Santos again without a red dot on my chest.”

“That isn’t true,” Geoff lies—it’s true, he’s banished people for less, shot point blank for minor conflicts. But Ray has to know better, that he would never...

Ray continues easily, his eyes are wet, beginning to redden with thin tendrils across the whites, “Dan betrayed us right? Tell me you aren’t planning on blowing his head off the second Michael’s okay again.”

Geoff is silent and Ray puffs out a humorless laugh, “Don’t fucking play with me, Geoff--I dropped the mark, I lost my game, and Michael nearly fucking  _died._ I deserve to be banished, I deserve the fucking red dot, I deserve-”

“Ray shut up,” Geoff interrupts with sharpness to his voice that cuts Ray’s rant off easily.

The day has been too long, too packed to the brim with stress and anxiety; ups and downs like a goddamn rollercoaster have spiralled everyones heads down into the sand but he has to be honest now. He has to be strong again, reassuring, like a leader—like a lover.

“No one’s getting banished, no one’s dying, and you are staying put right here where you belong--you’re right,” Ray opens his mouth and is immediately stopped with a single hand held up to his face, “If you were someone else it’d be a different story, I’d probably think you were being careless, because his life doesn’t mean that much to you,” his heart stutters as he says it, his hand searching out Michael’s on the bed, “But I  _know_  he means more to you than just being the explosives guy, I know you think his life is important.”

His hand trails away from Ray’s mouth to cup his cheek, forcing sad, watery eyes to his, “ _This was not your fault,”_ he says slowly, forcefully, “so you stop blaming yourself right now-- then go hold his other hand and be fucking cheesy as dicks with me.”

Ray smiles wetly and sniffles, drawing a sooty sleeve over his eyes to catch the escaping tears; it probably smears ash so he looks like a sweaty high school emo but he edges away from Geoff and slides to his knees on the far side of the bed, lacing his fingers with Michael’s. Then he stretches his other hand to meet Geoff’s in the middle, right over the bump of legs under the sheets-- it feels weird; an unnatural position to find himself in but his head feels calmer with the contact.

“We look fucking ridiculous,” he mumbles, laying his head down into the softness of Ryan’s bedsheets (and wasn’t that just a turn he never saw coming, ending up on Ryan’s bed.)

Geoff’s hand twitches and he laughs, “Hell yeah we do.”

The air holds tight for a brief moment longer before it’s shattered by a splutter of laughter and they both hold on tighter, feeling the pressure dissipate like dead smoke.

They both could easily fall asleep right there, even if the day is only two thirds over and the light streaming in through the window is still natural and bright. Instead Geoff keeps his thumbs moving in motions over both his boys hands, keeping himself awake with the repetitive movement.

After a while Ray hums into the sheets, smacking his lips as he angles himself a little more towards Geoff, "So Lindsay's back."

Geoff shoots him a look that Ray finds hilarious, " _No."_

\---

It feels like a century waiting, years passing with each slow blink as the two try to keep each other awake. Michael’s sleeping off the drugs, his body keeping him out of service while it deals with the pain and that fact does not go amiss to the sniper and the boss but it’ll be a miracle if that gives them a single ounce of ease over the waiting.

They stay like that, stretched over the bed in a squashed triangle until the sheets shift under their arms and they jerk up, breaking apart with the motion.

Michael blinks, red eyes stark against his pale skin and he frowns, “You guys l-look like you’re at my--” a cough, “my fucking deathbed.”

Geoff curls forward, "Don't even joke," he says sternly.

Michael winces at the tone, “That bad?”

“That bad,” Ray answers, scooting further up the side of the bed. Michael tries to sit up, to move so he can fill the gap on the other side of the mattress and winces for real, hissing out a pained breath.

“Argh, my side is on  _fire!”_ he complains with a gasp that catches painfully in his throat.

Ray looks sympathetic as both he and Geoff leap to stop him from hurting himself further, “Funny you’d choose that wording,” he points out.

It all falls into place without a second’s warning; the cops rocking up from around a corner that was meant to be cleared, blowing a hole in the clear-sailing exit plan before the C4 blew a literal hole in the side of the building. The searing agony that sliced through his mind--hitting the floor with a sharp crack, lying amongst rubble and breathing in dust, smoke, and ash.

“My explosives...”

Ray nods, “Went off perfectly, yeah.”

There’s something in his voice that cuts through Michael like the sharpest knife. He remembers Ray in the smoke, like a vision darting through the misty ash filling the air. He remembers being half dragged, limp and tearing through his lip as he bites down to keep the pain at bay.

“You pulled me out?” he croaks in Ray’s direction.

The man nods. Michael chews over the thought and reaches to reclaim his younger boyfriends hand.

“You’re a fucking moron,” he says, tugging as hard as he can on Ray’s hand as the movement tears at the wrapping on his chest. “You could have gotten yourself killed,” Ray topples forwards on shaking legs, numb from being in the same position for hours, catching himself before he can land directly on top of Michael.

Realisation constricts Michael’s heart a little when he notices that, while whoever patched him up had slipped a little extra bandage around the swell of his chest, it’s done nothing to flatten the area like his binder would.

The thickness of gauze pads out all the way up to the middle of his ribcage and even his drug addled brain can put two and two together and get four in the shape of an understanding that he’d be making do for a while yet.

Ray see’s the change in his demeanor and asks, “How far do you think you could have crawled on your own, idiot?”

His hand cups Michael’s jaw and pulls his eye line away from his body; he strokes his thumb in a calming gesture and his eyes soften in a way that tells Michael it’ll be okay.

Michael nods, grateful for the reassurance, “Thank you,” he whispers sincerely, already feeling weak and tired from just that little conversation.

His hands are shaking and it’s only then that he realises the fingers on his other hand are entwined with Geoff’s. Something kicks to the forefront of his head and he scrambles to stitch his thoughts together tight enough to form them into words.

“G-Geoff,” he breathes, clenching his fingers to the best of his ability. He has something important to say and he can only hope he knows what it is by the time he opens his mouth.

Geoff closes his free hand around their fists, “Shh, don’t talk, just rest.”

“N-no, Geoff listen, the money-” There it was, the thought, stitched together just in time.

A flash of distress flickers on Geoff’s face before he shakes his head firmly and says, “The money doesn’t matter, it’s okay-”

Michael sighs, frustrated, “Geoffrey fucking  _listen_ , the money--check Ray’s bike.”

Geoff gasps like a drowning man at that, his eyes lighting up in amazement, “You saved it?”

Michael scoffs, winces, and cuts Geoff a look that screams  _What do you take me for?_

“Of course I fucking saved it,  _I’m_ not an amateur.”

If the situation were different Geoff would tackle Michael to the bed and sex the hell out of him for being a fucking wonderboy, but instead he settles for jumping up and down like a kid, yelling in joy and pride before Ray cuts in.

“It’s still at the crack den, Geoff.”

Geoff’s grin doesn’t shift, he calls out for Jack, whooping with excitement as he tell him to fetch Ray’s bike and be fucking careful about it.

He plants a sloppy kiss on Michael’s forehead, minding the bruised and cut up skin, “Oh my  _beautiful_  boy, you are getting a promotion!” he jokes, laughing like a hyena.

Michael, who hasn’t seen his lover this happy since...well for a long time, struggles himself into a more upright position and can’t help but grin through the grimace as he says,  _“Please_  I already run this joint.”

As Ray shakes his head and kicks his feet up, adrenaline gone and body bone weary, and Geoff settles himself down enough to breathe, Michael lets out a long, slow breath and smiles.

They may not be indestructible, but they’re damn near close.


End file.
